One-off $39 million Rolls-Royce Arcadia Droptail five years in the making

The one-of-a-kind Rolls-Royce Arcadia Droptail – the third of four ‘coach-built’ Droptail roadsters to be built – costing a rumoured £20 million ($AU39 million) has been revealed ahead of its delivery to a buyer in Singapore.

The two-seat Arcadia comes after the $57 million Amethyst and $40 million La Rose Noire (black rose) roadsters, with a fourth and final vehicle still to come.

The Arcadia – meaning ‘Heaven on Earth’ – was designed and built by the car maker’s revived bespoke 'coachbuilding' division to the customer’s exact requirements, with the first sketches drawn in 2019.

Rolls-Royce says its team spent 8000 hours designing, cutting, treating and fitting the car's ornate wood sections, and took five months to assemble the interior clock alone.

Rolls-Royce says it has drawn on the buyer's ideas and inspirations for a nautical design theme, combined with influences from Southeast Asian architecture, and classic-car cues for the interior.

Its exterior paintwork blends glass shards and aluminium to make it appear like a solid colour at first glance, but to "shimmer" in sunlight and present "an illusion of unending depth" upon closer inspection, the car maker claims.

Dark silver ‘duotone’ paintwork on the bonnet and lower sections of the car was chosen to contrast the white.

While it may be recognisable as a Rolls-Royce convertible from the front – with the iconic ‘Spirit of Ecstasy’ bonnet motif and classic grille – things are different at the rear.

The 'droptail' section – painted for the first time – was constructed using carbon fibre, a material common in exotic supercars and in motor racing for its combination of high strength and lightness.

Wood is used throughout the car, including the largest continuous wood section ever seen in a Rolls-Royce.

Officially ‘Santos Straight Grain’, the wood is said to have been chosen for its interlocking patterns and fine grain – which Rolls-Royce says is ‘one of the finest species’ the car maker uses.

The wood is supported by carbon-fibre structures to create the unique angles and shapes of the Arcadia.

The rear deck – loaded with Santos Straight Grain set at precise 55-degree angles – is also aerodynamically functional, says the car maker.

CAD (Computer Aided Design) was used to digitally map the interior wood placement, which again follows a 55-degree pattern as it surrounds the white and brown leather seating and trim.

The sheer amount of wood on the rear deck and in the cabin makes the 8000 hours it took to craft a total of 233 individual pieces more obvious, about 1000 hours of which was in finding a way to protect the wood from the elements.

The cabin may be reminiscent of a boat on Lake Como, but Rolls-Royce says it rejected a yacht coating to protect the wood as insufficient.

Instead, it formulated its own lacquer to maintain its lustre in harsh climates and in wet weather.

The clock’s five-month assembly process came after a two-year development process and is said to be the most complex ever produced for a Rolls-Royce.

It includes a ceramic-coated minute hand – claimed to be expected to outlast anodised coatings – and has 119 facets of raw metal to create a 'geometric guilloche' pattern.

The number was deliberately chosen to celebrate the car maker’s 119th anniversary when the owner was first shown the vehicle in 2023.

A dozen 0.1mm thick hour markers – known as ‘chaplets’ – were hand painted using magnifying cameras to ensure readability.

The Arcadia Droptail is powered by a 6.75-litre twin-turbo V12 petrol engine, with power increased from 420kW to 442kW – plus 841Nm.